18 clever storage solutions for small bedrooms

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West Elm

If you ask my friends or family, they will tell you that for the last five years, I have not led an organized life. A penchant for holding onto everything that might come in handy in the future, plus a generally nomadic existence (home to the midwest for the summers, back to New York for school semesters), meant that I lived in a semi-permanent state of bare-boned survival and clutter.

So when I moved into my first adult apartment and started putting down substantial roots in New York, I spent hours developing an organizational system that worked for me, my things, and the given space. I was so tired of being disorganized, and paying so much for rent without getting the most out of the space didn't seem logical to me. As Marie Kondo might say, it did not “bring me joy” to live in a graveyard of things.

One obstacle that became immediately apparent was the difficulty of building a smart storage system without making my bedroom look sterile — like I lived in one giant-sized plastic Tupperware container.

A sweet spot for bedroom storage is finding multipurpose buys — things that add some aesthetic value as well as functionality (especially if you’re concerned about space) or hide their storage capability. And if you’re living in a small apartment or sharing the space with other people, the more clever and out-of-the-way the better. With this in mind, I've compiled a few of the best buys I found in my research — many of which I own.

Below are 18 clever ways to add storage space to your bedroom without making it look you live in a Container Store:

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